Here we have a striking release from a label new to me, Classicprint. Fortunately
the company offers rather higher standards than the name, indicative of cheap
photographic processing, promises. Metropolis is most attractively
presented in digipak form, using 90% recycled materials and local labour,
and looks and feels like a quality product through and through. With the
sheer number of releases today it makes sense to do something to make your
titles stand-out in the crowd, and this disc certainly does that.

Metropolis is actually the title piece of an album which presents
one work of approximately quarter-of-an-hour duration by each of four composers,
all scored for wind and percussion. These are contemporary pieces - the oldest
composer being born in 1949 - and while they are modern in voice they are
all clearly written for the audience rather than the hopefully now discredited
ivory tower theorists who attempted to destroy music a generation and two
ago. Perhaps for composers raised with the cinema programmatic music is more
acceptable than it once was, for certainly in one way or another each of
the four works is unashamedly programmatic, even, cinematic. It is also young
music, enthusiastic, and often very loud.

Out of a scuttering nervous chaos, suddenly we are on Bernstein's Broadway,
a swinging syncopated rhythm, and walking piano baseline alternate with the
hustle of the Metropolis. Adam Gorb has written cool, exhilarating
music, requiring staggering virtuosity from the players for what is a
spellbinding exercise in orchestral modern jazz. And yes, there are moments
which suggest both Michael Dougherty's superman-inspired Metropolis
Symphony and the more experimental moments of John William's score for
Superman The Movie. This isn't comic-book Mickey-Mouse music, but
rather the metropolis in all its manifold colours. Things eventually calm
down, and we get a mournful sax-solo, the lonely late-night song of the big
city, before the piece ends 'starkly and simply'. The composer says he was
inspired to reflect the hectic pace of modern life after listening to a radio
play set in the 21st century, but of course the urban SF dystopia
can also be traced to Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1926), which surely
must be the origin of the title here.

Metropolisis in a single 14 minute movement. Martin Ellerby's
Paris Sketches offers four short scenes from a different metropolis
Saint-Germain-des-Prés recalls a Copland sunrise, perhaps with
a touch of Baxian boldness once the city is alive. Pigalle is definitely
off-Broadway, jazzy, witty, and full of fun, Père Lachaise
is dreamy, romantic and beguiling, while Les Halles opens with a Hollywood
fanfare and offers a rousing celebration. The composer himself mentions Ravel,
Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Satie and Berlioz in his notes, and quotes the latter
in the finale. I have no idea what nationality Martin Ellerby is, but this
music really sounds like the work of an American in Paris, and is none the
worse for it.

Sailing with Archangelsby Geoffrey Poole, is inspired by 'the
relationship of man and the sea', specifically the voyages of Vasco de Gamba
between 1497-99. He describes the work as "a vast photographic collage: the
jarring of consecutive images " This is more sober than the previous
pieces, a work in one 20-minute movement sub-divided into six sections which
doesn't, as might be expected, draw upon Renaissance music. This is very
much a late-20th century continuation of the English classical
tradition, with hits of sea shanties and folk melodies among some robustly
architectural writing. Hornpipes however does have fun with some brassy
impersonations of ship's horns, and a mutant sort of jazz emerges yet again.
Tradewinds sparkles with warm breezes, some atmospherically scored
percussion, and a whiff of the orient. The finale, Ocean, is a chillingly
majestic portrait of the unrelenting sea. Poole says that he intended to
bridge the gap between modern music and today's 'superb youth bands', and
he has presented them with a fair challenge here.

Samurai by Nigel Clarke ends the programme with some thrillingly
dynamic controlled fury. This is explosive writing, yet extremely well controlled
and organised, with a relentless percussive edge which calls to mind Stravinsky's
The Rite of Spring and Jerry Goldsmith's The Planet of the Apes
and The Wind and the Lion. However,Clarke also depicts
the cultured, artistic side of the Samurai, in ways which one has to say
evoke a CinemaScope orient. Depending on your taste for Bernard Herrmann
in exotic mode you will be right at home here.

Though parts of the classical world would still like to pretend that the
cinema does not exist (even jazz only gets a grudging look in), it is absurd
to deny that the most important new art and entertainment form of the last
century must inevitably have had an influence upon composers who have grown-up
with it, even if they have never composed for it. I have heard few discs
where that influence was so obvious as here, and the result is to revitalise
the classical tradition, with four pieces that normal people might even be
tempted to pay to hear. Above all else it is a joy to hear contemporary classical
music which one would actually look forward to hearing again, rather than
dashing for the off button with maximum haste. The complex interplay of wind
and percussion is frequently stunning, the playing astonishingly dextrous,
and the recording superb, capturing the full range of this vibrant programme
with overwhelming physical intensity. Wait till the building is otherwise
deserted, then set the amp to 11.

Reviewer

Gary S. Dalkin

and Ailís Ní Ríain adds

The Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra is recognised as one of
the leading conservatoire ensembles in the world. Since their formation almost
twenty years ago, they have performed a vast amount of music, commissioning
new works and reviving old. They have toured Japan and France and in their
regular concerts at the RNCM have performed over 500 works. They have also
made recordings of music by Richard Rodney Bennett, Guy Woolfenden and the
Principal of the RNCM, Edward Gregson.

This CD contains pieces by the British composers Adam Gorb, Geoffrey Poole,
Martin Ellerby and Nigel Clarke. Conducted by Timothy Reynish who has had
a long affiliation with the wind orchestra and Clark Rundell - the conductor
of the RNCM New Music Ensemble - these performances are impressive from what
is ostensibly a student ensemble.

The recording opens with the hectic Metropolis by Adam Gorb, the new Head
of Composition at the RNCM. This dramatic work, at turns brash and vulgar
then tranquil and stark, was written to reflect the pace of modern-day living.
The ensemble handles its explosive gestures and agitated pace with absolute
confidence and clarity.

Martin Ellerbys four-movement Paris Sketches pays homage to that city:
to the artists and composers who have lived and worked there or indeed just
passed through. Each of the four movements refers to prominent places or
features in Parisian life. Ellerbys score is a colourful, affectionate
tribute to the city he loves. Awakening in the Latin Quarter of
Saint-Germain-des-Pres he moves on to depict Pigalle  the Soho of Paris
- as a burlesque with scenes cast in the mould of a balletic scherzo,
humourous in a kind of Stravinsky meets Prokofiev way. Another movement
is reminiscent of Saties Gymnopédies while the finale quotes
from Berliozs Te Deum which received its premiere in Paris in1855.
This lively, charming work is performed with great gusto and vigour by this
youthful ensemble.

The Manchester-based composer Geoffrey Poole - who teaches composition at
The University of Manchester - is represented here by a substantial twenty-minute
work Sailing with Archangels. The theme is the relationship of man and the
sea. The sea is represented by orchestral wind textures while man
is a mixture of hornpipes and shanties based on traditional models. These
depict images of epic voyage and sea life while accompanied by a blasting
horn.

The recording closes with Sumurai by Nigel Clarke, a powerful and vibrant
work that juxtaposes two very different images of the Japanese Samurai. Firstly
it represents the war-like imagery of the Samurai warrior then gradually
relaxes to relate the more tranquil side of the Samuri with oboe and flute
solos.

Programmatically, this is a well-balanced CD, although perhaps not abstract
enough for the more hard-line fans of contemporary music. The RNCM Wind
Ensembles playing is tight and assured throughout.